And so the smartphonification of the general purpose computer continues. This time around, though, it might actually be for the better. Microsoft has detailed two new features in Windows 8: refreshing and resetting your computer. Reinstalls will be a thing of the past.

Actually my nettop XP install is from 2004, my Win 7 gaming PC install is 2009, neither has ever needed reinstall thanks to my secret which is.....don't install crappy software! I know, its a concept and i'm sure heartbroken over those kitty screensavers i missed out on, but that's the price of having a rock solid Windows i suppose.

For those that would like a butt simple and cheap (or free depending on which Windows version you are on) way to set up windows and never have to worry about it here is the way. 1.-On first install go to ninite.com, pick any freeware you need and grab Avast free while you are there, 2.- go download Comodo dragon for a browser (you can use Chromium if you prefer, but i like the extra security features of the dragon) 3.-Install filehippo update checker which will take care of third party software updates, 4.- and finally the part that may cost money but is free if you're on XP as there is an old version they give away free, and that is Tuneup Utilities. It cleans the junk that ends up building in the registry during uninstalls and much more. you can get Glary at ninite if you don't mind doing it manually, but TuneUp has better features and does a better job IMHO and by default is fully automated.

Tada! you know how a Windows PC that is pretty much as easy to use as a toaster. it'll clean and take care of itself, Avast and Comodo keep out any nasties, its all easy peasy simple. if you are paranoid and want your machine to be unbreakable short of hardware failure you can add Comodo Time Machine for free and that way if little suzy manages to bork the OS so bad it won't even boot you just push the home key on startup and in 20 minutes you're back like nothing ever happened. See how easy that is? Certainly easier than playing forum hunt when Linux borks your wireless and with this even the most clueless are safe as houses while power users have a good running machine they never have to fiddle with, it all "just works" and keeps on working, year after year, oh and with TuneUp there is no "WinRot" which I've found is caused by badly written third party uninstallers leaving bad pointers in the reg. Enjoy!

Clearly it doesn't "just work" if you had to list off a dozen third party apps required to keep your OS running. :p

Plus how are new users supposed to know all that? Usually that would end up being via the same methods which Linux users would navigate too when troubleshooting. So don't start spouting garbage about how Linux requires a learning curve to be a stable OS when you just listed of a page of prerequisites which Windows users need to know.

Any OS requires a degree of education. As hard as MS, Apple and Canonical try, computers are a complicated beast. It's akin to giving someone a car and expecting them to drive it without any lessons.

In fact, this problem i have with fanboys in any camp (be that Linux, Apple or Windows) as they assume their method is the best and no other OS works. Clearly that's not true otherwise Linux (for example) wouldn't be used on millions of desktops worldwide.

Now I think I've been more than fair because I've tried not to let my personal preference colour my comments on here. So please show me the same respect and don't fob me off with false pre-tenses.

Here try my little challenge and see my words are true! Take ANY distro from 3 years ago, install it, get all the drivers working. you may use CLI now as you are the builder not the consumer. Now that its working use whatever GUI method you prefer to upgrade it to surrent and see how much is broken. now go to the forum and ask for a GUI way to fix what went wrong...guess what? it most likely doesn't exist! When some poo pooed what I said i said "Okay here is the problem i'm having in wireless, now pretend i'm not a nerd, i'm Suzy the checkout girl who knows nothing about your OS, walk me through fixing it with the GUI because buttons i understand" they tried and they tried until finally one said "You can't do that in a GUI".

And THAT, that right there, is why Linux has lower than the margin for error. windows drivers almost never break, and if they do there is a handy 'roll back drivers' button that is "clicky clicky reboot".

Your failing is that you think people will sit down and read man pages and learn Bash and the fact is NOBODY wants to learn that mess, okay? NOBODY. they want GUI, they want simple, they want clicky clicky easy. you don't give them that they go somehwre else. they do NOT care about 'free as in freedom" they do NOT care about "the right to tinker" they do NOT care about "the power of CLI" they want simple and easy. Windows and OSX gives them that in spades, Linux don't. heck look at ANY "mainstream' distro and look at the apps, some do things the Windows way, some the mac way, some old school UNIX, no consistency at all anywhere. Oh and the latest numbers show Linux stalled at 1.3%, that's nearly lower than the margin for error. for an OS that has been out 20 years already? that's horrible numbers.

Me i'm having to scramble to find a Win 7 starter supplier because after all my tests not a SINGLE Linux survived my little three year test, which is less than half the length windows provides support BTW. that's just sad man, that's just sad. Oh and my little 'trick" is simply that, a trick I use to make sure i never have to mess with a machine again. the simple fact is I can slap an AV on a Windows box along with dragon or Firefox or anything other than IE and it'll be going a decade from now with NO tinkering. Can you say the same?

It has nothing to do with being a fanboy of anything, its about knowing the market which its obvious the Linux community doesn't or the numbers wouldn't be so lousy. If I were to sell Linux boxes i'd be out of business in a year because I would have to provide free lifetime support AND have spares for when the 6 month upgrade broke something that a "fix" isn't out for yet AND have to deal with customers getting burned because the only way to buy devices is to play hardware roulette when it comes to Linux because all the forums have device lists horribly out of date. Sorry but I'd like to not go out of business and the only ones that Linux "works" for is geeks who don't mind fiddling, since i don't sell to geeks no sale.